How To Breastfeed?

How To Breastfeed?

How to breastfeed? This sounds like a very simple question, and some people think it’s instinctive. But the truth is every woman and baby must learn how to breastfeed.

It is instinctive to want to feed your newborn, love them, cuddle them, keep them warm and clean. And your newborn has several reflexes to help them learn to nurse, like the rooting reflex, which they do when their searching for your breast. They also have a crawling reflex, sucking and swallowing reflex.

But still you both need to learn and it takes time to figure it out. And like anything you want to learn it helps to have a guide or a teacher and a support person. It helps so much to have someone who has “been their done that” to help you through the bumps you may encounter along the way. Books and the internet can also be helpful resources.

Why Do I Need To Learn How To Breastfeed?

It seems that in the past or in countries where breastfeeding is generalized the transition is easier. The reason is simple. Imagine as a little girl watching your mother, aunts, sisters, and every other woman in your society nurse their children. Everything you saw helped teach you how to hold, feed and be with your baby. And when you grew up and had your first baby, there was a group of experienced mothers around to support you.

Today in the USA and other Western Countries, we are coming from a generation where the majority of mothers did not breastfeed.

Even many of our grandmothers did not breastfeed. The culture of Breastfeeding has disintegrated to the point that we no longer learn this skill from our relatives. So if we want to learn what used to be passed on from mother to daughter we need to find another way to learn. Today, more and more women are making the choice to breastfeed their babies and many of these women are finding breastfeeding classes and groups help them a lot to make it feel natural again. Fortunately if you are well informed and prepared, breastfeeding will be like learning how to change diapers or putting on a complicated wrap sling!